Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

GraceKennedy says it expects to have up to five dozen Western Union money remittance outlets in Britain over the next year under the super agent agreement it signed with the American firm earlier this year.

Grace has already opened two money transfer stores in the UK under the deal.

"We hope to have 60 locations by the end of the first year," said Joan-Marie Powell, the managing director of GraceKennedy Remit-tance Services (GKRS), the group subsidiary that already operates Western Union franchises in Jamaica and in several other Caribbean countries.

Western Union and GraceKennedy deepened their partnership last year when Western Union took a 25 per cent stake in GKRS.

This was followed by Western Union's decision to provide GKRS with super agent status in the UK, allowing it to build out a network of franchises across the UK. GraceKennedy will have to get its specific licence for remittance stores.

Grace is one of six super agents that Western Union has worldwide.

Lucrative business

Jamaicans abroad, mostly in Britain, the United States and Canada, send home approximately US$2 billion annually, much of it via money transfer services like Western Union, making it a lucrative business for firms.

GraceKennedy officials, however, couldn't immediately say how much the company planned to spend to build out a UK network.

Joe Taffe, the CEO of GK Investments, the subsidiary under which the group's financial services and other non-food subsidiaries falls, explained that GraceKennedy would not itself go out establishing stand-alone money transfer stores.

"We have agents rather than us investing in stores," explained Taffe. "The more transactions, the more we pay and the more revenue."

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com